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Five Murderers Who Put a Noose Around Their Own Necks
They laughed all the way to the condemned cell
ack in the days when a conviction for murder in England usually meant a date with the hangman, the murderer had to take meticulous care to avoid detection. Some got clean away with their crimes, while others left police with very little to go on. Then there were those who simply lacked the nous to avoid the noose. As these fatal errors show, some carried out their plans in such an amateurish way that on being convicted they may well have laughed all the way to the condemned cell.
Henry Wainwright
This respectable Whitechapel brush salesman’s darker side surfaced in 1872, when he bigamously married twenty-year-old Harriet Lane under the assumed name of Percy King. He set up home with his secret bride in Mile End, giving his occupation as traveller to explain his frequent absences. “Mrs” King had two daughters here.
For three years Wainwright had his cake and ate it, but the extravagance took its toll on his business. He was unable to keep his spare wife in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed and she began calling at his shop, demanding money and being disruptive. He took an extreme measure to stop this interference and avoid a major scandal: he shot her and hid the corpse at his warehouse…
